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Monday, September 8, 2008

A lesson in vocabulary for the media

Lies, lies, lies, yeah!

I can’t help but let that annoying strain of a song form the 80s new wave group The Thompson Twins permeate my brain when I watch almost any news broadcast these days.

In this day and age, there are horrendous problems with America’s media channels and their respective news broadcasts. Things like truth, honesty, integrity, trust, and impartiality have lost their meaning in broadcast journalism these days. Let’s look at these words from two perspectives and see how they are ignored these days. (definitions are from dictionary.com and verses are from biblegateway.com.

Truth – 1. The true or actual state of a matter. 2. Conformity with fact or reality; verity. 3. A verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like.“…rejecting all falsity and being done now with it, let everyone express the truth with his neighbor…” - Ephesians 4:25 (AMP)

Honesty – 1. The quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness. 2. Truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness. 3. Freedom from deceit or fraud.“Honesty guides good people…” – Proverbs 11:3 (NLT), “The ways of honest people are made straight because they do what is right…” – Proverbs 11:5 – (NIRV)

Integrity – 1. Adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character. 2. The state of being whole, entire, or undiminished. 3. A sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition. 4. An undivided or unbroken completeness or totality with nothing wanting. 5. Moral soundness.“in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility” – Titus 2:7 (NKJV)

Trust – 1. Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence. 2. A person on whom or thing on which one relies. 3. The obligation or responsibility imposed on a person in whom confidence or authority is placed. “…a messenger who is trusted brings healing” – Proverbs 13:17 – (NIRV)

When you watch our news reports these days, can you honestly say that they contain the defined words above? If you can, then you are deluding yourself. We are living in a time when an unbiased reporting of the truth has been thrown out the window.

“In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.”

Do you know who said that? It is a quote from someone who was called the most trusted person in America. It was former CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite. During most of his time at CBS, he was the most watched News anchor. His word was gold and he understood how to report the truth, no matter how naked and ugly it appeared.

MoveOn.org and Media Matters are doing their best to foist their own agendas into the newsroom, American society and into our government. And now it is becoming more commonly known how cable news channels like CNN and MSNBC are falling in line with those liberal outlets. Even Fox News has allowed programming to tilt one way or the other. Fox’s reporting seems to be better balanced, though.

This past weekend, MSNBC pulled overtly liberal Olberman and spit master Matthews from anchor positions. They will still serve as analysts where there vitriolic diatribe can serve the democrats best.

Time and time again there is more and more evidence of bias in news reporting. Yes, that includes the perspective from the right as well. There are shows out there like O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity and Colmes, Rivera, among others where they are editorial shows that express opinion as well. But the nightly network and the Sunday morning news programs should report the news or interview the guests fairly, without political tint.

But it just ain’t done anymore. I have even noticed how Fox News Sunday has reported thing with both a right and left tint to it.

Thank God, we have people in the blogosphere who desire to get the truth out there. And I am just as pleased if that truth exposes right wing evil as it does left wing evil. Blogging, BTR and Ustream have been called the “New Media,” “True Media,” and now “Main Street Media.” We also have some good accountability sites like Media Resource Center and Accuracy in Media to make sure things stay on the up and up.

Right now, I sincerely believe that it will be the left wing media that will lose the election for Barack Obama by slanting the reporting into a leftist perspective.